Accountability Leadership: A Catalyst for Change
Accountability Leadership was inspired by a professional “epiphany” I experienced in my first senior executive post as an HR Director of a large government organisation.
Soon after I took up the role of HR Director, it became clear that we were heading downhill fast on the delivery of a major business initiative. The crux of the problem was not our business competence. We were meeting our personal goals and objectives as always – yet the project was still at risk. Rather, it was the quality of our interactions that was letting us down. Our failure as an executive team to hold one another accountable was setting up our entire organisation to fail.
With our professional reputations at stake, we had no intention of letting the project go bad. So I worked with my fellow executives through specific actions to improve our personal accountability to one another as a leadership team. As a result, we managed to turn a pending loss into a remarkable profit.
We realised that accountability was something we couldn’t delegate. But much to our surprise, our new approach to accountability went viral. The employees in our respective divisions started to intuitively follow suit, modelling our new behaviours.
I found this early accountability lesson one of the most profound of my career, and a personal catalyst for change. I have since developed a personal and professional mantra about what I see as the number-one issue that makes or breaks leadership performance today: Accountability for outcomes, performance, and results.
That mantra goes like this:
“The degree to which you have developed the capacity to hold your organisation and its people accountable for the delivery of results is directly proportional to your capacity to either build–or haemorrhage–value from your organisation.”
Inspired by that early experience, I developed an enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge relating to the new science of accountability (which you can read more about in my new book, Accountability Leadership).
In my experience, the problem is that we have adopted the habit of using accountability as a tool of negativity – focussing on short-sighted measures of progress and wielding punishment when things go wrong. We have lost sight of the true meaning of accountability as a positive tool to help things go right. To transform cultural habits from low accountability to high accountability can actually be surprisingly straightforward. All you need to do is tackle one cause or one conversation at a time… and magic happens. But the secret is to focus your attention on changing just a few keystone habits that will make the greatest difference.
That’s where Accountability Leadership comes in, representing a virtually untapped goldmine of opportunity for personal and business transformation using the new science of accountability.
Post by Di Worrall
Award-winning Business Transformation & Strategy Consultant, Best Selling Author, Executive Coach
Find out more about the missing link between high performance and high accountability in Di Worrall’s #1 Amazon best selling book: Accountability Leadership – How Great Leaders Build a High Performance Culture of Accountability and Responsibility (2013) at http://amzn.to/1cphIpl
Accountability Leadership Saves Tech Company
In 2005, HCL Technologies was in trouble.
The Delhi-based IT firm was losing market share, as competitors grew by 50% annually.
By 2009, HCL’s president, Vineet Nayar had turned the company around, nearly tripling annual revenues and doubling market capitalisation despite the recession.
Nayar accomplished all this through a top-down culture of accountability, beginning with the leadership qualities of himself—the CEO—and other senior managers.
The Rules Of Accountability Have Changed
Great business leaders understand that acceptance of greater personal accountability and responsibility leads organisations back on the path to success.
But with the evolving nature of 21st century business, the practical steps that go into creating a high performance culture of accountability have become more muddled than ever.
Many organisations have seen temporary improvements, implementing traditional systems of accountability in an attempt to drive high performance in the workplace—only to quickly revert back to their old ways, or worse.
Accountability Leadership Will Teach You:
- What it really takes to lead a high performance culture of accountability
- Why so many of today’s employees avoid personal accountability and responsibility like the plague, and how to reverse that trend
- How to sustain great performance through inspiring feedback, feed-forward and follow-through
- What an accountability plan is, how to create one, and why it’s considered the “secret weapon” behind successful business transformation
Filled with real world case studies and straightforward, easy to digest research, Accountability Leadership offers practical solutions that are direct, engaging, fast, cost-effective, proven, and easy to implement…
Immediate, Concrete Solutions You’ll Take Away From This Book Include:
- How to transform the “dark side” of accountability into a positive force for change
- Why carrots and sticks no longer work—and what they’ve been replaced with
- How to create compelling consequences that inspire people to perform at their best, and achieve the ultra productive workstate known as “flow”
- Crack the code of high accountability conversations, turning confrontation into a productive and positive opportunity
Accountability Leadership Also Sheds Light On Topics Like…
- How negativity bias covertly sabotages your feedback loop with your employees
- The optimal ratio for positive to negative comments in feedback
- The right amount of autonomy to give employees—without overdoing it
- What lack of recognition is really doing to your workforce (hint: it’s staggering)
- The surprising biochemical effect of praise, and why it cannot fail
Plus, You’ll Also Receive A Special Bonus
Reader’s can claim an exclusive 20-minute podcast interview with top-rated thought leader Marshall Goldsmith, sharing his powerful experiences and groundbreaking ideas on coaching for accountability leadership—absolutely free.
A Personal Message From The Author
Accountability is arguably the number-one issue that makes or breaks leadership performance today. Yet most of us were never taught this critical skill—not by our parents, teachers or business leaders.
The good news is, accountability can be coached.
The ideas in this book draw from extensive research and 25 years experience working with executives to improve performance through high accountability.
These ideas work.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre - Business, Leadership, Workplace Behaviour, Human Resources, Executive Coaching
Rating – PG
More details about the author
Connect with Di Worrall on Facebook & Twitter
Website http://www.diworrall.com.au/
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